[06 November 2023]: "Perishable Instant" — global solidarity and oppression olympics; whack-a-mole methodologies; optimization; vile forms of study; love deficit
global solidarity and oppression olympics; whack-a-mole methodologies; optimization; vile forms of study; love deficit
Bismillah. We begin everything with the name of Allah. We say Bismillah to initiate an act to acknowledge the intention and the ethics we carry with all that follows Bismillah.
This is part of the newsletter’s “Perishable Instant” (Clarice Lispector) strand.
These are short bursts of writing or sketches when a spark from elsewhere compels me. Read more about the changes in the newsletter rhythm here.
Hiya!
I know it’s back to back with the newsletters, but I had to get something off my chest.
I have many things to say, and instead of waiting until I can neatly organize them into a cute package, I will share them as they came/are coming to me: a series of thoughts that are all too cognitively greedy to allow any single line of thought to come to fruition. With each sudden shift in focus, I am listening to my synapses battle it out for my attention.
Oppression Olympics
I am actually just sharing something I shared on Instagram this morning with a few edits for grammar (lol) and context:
Now is a perfect time to infiltrate efforts to articulate (and act on) intersectional solidarity across all oppressed people. We are not doing oppression olympics over here because it is one of the most desireable distraction because it emerges incrementally and often covertly to encourage communities to fight over the performative attention of governments and institutions. Anyone whispering in your ear that you shouldn’t care about what is happening “over there” has chosen to ignore that what is happening “over there” is connected to what is happening “right here.” Militarism and the incentivization of war is a global problem with its regional specificities. Mentioning DRC, Sudan, and Haiti in the same breath as Palestine is
a reminder that colonialism will always exceed our imagination of what horrors are possible.I am finding that one of the grandest emotional manipulations is convincing folks that we can only care about one crisis at once —that we can only liberate one region at a time. It’s a whack-a-mole methodology that serves those who want to remain in power.If nothing else, we are responsible for articulating these connections not as an effort to remove nuance, but as an effort to understand that oppression is an interdependent network of actors. We must also remind ourselves that theterrible efficiency of these genocides and invasions is built on accumulated learning— the terrible people of the world are literally looking to the past techniques to plan their approaches -a very crude optimization plan — the literal weaponization of a vile form of study.Just as much as oppressive governments and individuals are optimizing through deep study of sucessful strategies, those of us in the pursuit of liberation for every single oppressed person, then we must also be in deep study. Currently, I am learning more about colonialism and genocide in relation to the development and suppression of telecommunication technologies; the role of influencers and celebrities in the commercialization and co-opting of activism through strategic ad placement and regional trips; the international coordination and police force training, surveillance technology, and militarization; global examples of freedom schools
We Do Not Have a Love Deficit
I have seen things about how we just need more love to end the war in Gaza, and I have heard this regarding just about every war, genocide, or crisis. They are not direct declarations; more so, they are these obtuse campaigns that hedge toward a structural analysis before walking it back in favor of “more listening” and vague gesturing toward “building community.”
As the earth breaks at the same cadence as my heart breaks, I want listening and community more than anything else. However, I think it is important to remember that the desire for a particular socioemotional landscape that would sustain any resolution to war is not the same as the resolution to war. Get me? So yes, love, community, and understanding are the types of dispositions every human (or at least enough of us) need to sustain true liberation; however, the varied desires to love and build community are not the resolution. Both naively and certainly as a manipulative tactic, wars and genocides are often reduced to a series of unresolved interpersonal conflicts. We have all heard that if Muslims and Jews just loved each other more, then we wouldn’t have this conflict. I truly wish the love my Jewish homies, and I share would end everything. I think people enjoy this configuration of “love fixes all” because it is soothing. Soothing as in smooth. Smooth as in it situates itself as a thing with no ridges or opportunities for resistance: like who is disagreeing with love? Global capitalism is a hyperobject, and when we are unable to or, in many cases, unwilling to wrestle with that, we default to a scale of relationship that is more concrete and graspable — the interpersonal. The choice of the interpersonal creates a discursive parameter that seeks to obscure the truth that war, genocide, and colonialism depend on a very particular coordination of nations, systems, and language over large swathes of time. I do not believe “love” or any other neoliberal instrumentalization of affect can fix this. It is not a lack of love that is the problem; it is the object of that love that is an issue. One can love justice. One can love power. One can love so many things. We are not in a love deficit – we are in a crisis of misdirected love where that which is exalted should never be exalted. In Islam, it is said that people can make an ʾilāh or god of anything. Many folks have made a god out of profit, out of selective empathy, out of hagiography, out of silence, and out of sheer malice. Please do not take this as a tirade against love. It is only love — love for a new world, that keeps me going.
Thank you for reading,
Kameelah 👽
Finally, while I do not organize my finances around paid newsletter subscriptions, wouldn’t it be cool if this wee little newsletter could allow me to take quarterly self-imposed writing retreats? Consider getting a one-year membership at $70 USD :)
How to cite this newsletter: Rasheed, K. (Year, Month Day). Newsletter Title. I Will (?) Figure This All Out Later. URL